On December 5th, the research team at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) achieved a historic win in energy science: for the first time ever, more energy was produced by an artificial fusion reaction than was consumed – 3.15 megajoules (MJ) produced versus 2.05 megajoules in laser energy to cause the reaction. High-performance computing was key to this breakthrough (called “ignition”), and HPCwire recently had the chance to speak with Brian Spears, deputy lead modeler for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) at the NIF, about HPC’s role in making this fusion ignition a reality.
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